'Papa Smurf' accused denies he was with victim

A MAN accused of murdering a woman whose body was found in a wheelie bin in his garden insisted yesterday he had no memory of a "brief encounter" with her in Edinburgh city centre.

Robert Chalmers, 59, admitted that he was seen in closed circuit television footage with Samantha Wright, 24, on the night she disappeared, but he could not remember the circumstances of the meeting.

He told a jury that he was well-known where he lived - nicknamed Santa Claus and Papa Smurf because of a distinctive grey beard - and somebody would "definitely" have noticed if he had taken a vibrant young woman to his house. The High Court in Edinburgh has heard that Ms Wright 's body was discovered in October 2009, in a bin, concealed in bushes in the back garden of the house in Magdalene Drive, Duddingston, Edinburgh, which Chalmers rented.

She had been missing for 14 months, and police were led to the house after identifying Ms Wright and Chalmers in CCTV film from Rose Street at its junction with Hanover Street on the night of 12 June, 2008.

Chalmers denies murdering Ms Wright " by means unknown" and attempting to dismember the body before concealing it in the house and, then, in the garden.